US Supreme Court rejects Christa Pike's final plea to halt execution
The US Supreme Court has denied Christa Pike's request for a stay on 29 September, less than 24 hours before she is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
The US Supreme Court has refused to intervene in the execution of Christa Pike, exhausting the last legal avenue available to Tennessee’s only female death row inmate hours before she is due to be put to death.
The court denied Pike’s request for a stay on 29 September, less than 24 hours before her execution by lethal injection on Wednesday, USA Today reports. The court issued no written opinion.
Pike’s lawyers brought the case to the court on 25 September, arguing that being executed by male executioners would be unconstitutionally cruel: Pike, repeatedly raped as a minor and diagnosed with PTSD, would suffer flashbacks in the execution chamber, the Tennessean reports.
In a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the Supreme Court on 26 September, a dozen women’s advocacy organisations wrote: “She will relive the sounds, the smells, and the pain.”
Tennessee’s attorneys countered that while “Pike’s prior abuse and mental struggles are tragic to say the least,” they were “no cause to insulate her from a lawfully imposed and exhaustively reviewed death sentence that a jury of her peers imposed purely because of her own horrific conduct.”
Amnesty International joined more than 100 advocacy groups on 29 September in urging Governor Bill Lee to grant clemency. “It is unthinkable that Governor Lee would even consider moving forward with this execution,” said Justin Mazzola of Amnesty International USA.
Unless Lee reverses course, Pike is scheduled to be executed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville at 10am local time on Wednesday.
Sources
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